Is there any government policy on this right now?
You mean: Should the teacher be compelled to wear a mask during class?
They shouldnât; itâs not very effective per Taiwanâs own CDC.
If they do fight them on it. Make them point to a rule.
In my childâs school all students must wear a mask. If Taiwanâs CDC say you have to be sick to wear a mask than schools are not listening
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The Education bureau doesnât require mask wearing. I nearly ripped the mic from the principal during our school assembly for thanking students for wearing them, because itâs not a requirement. This goes back to âlimited resourcesâ.
The homeroom teachers are all wearing masks. One of them told me it was required, another said it was a personal choice for protection. Students are mostly wearing masks. Iâm not going to say anything because no one covers their faces when coughing or sneezing, so mask wearing is appreciated by me.
They are not, however, using soap to wash their hands after using the toilet unless I happen to be in there washing my hands at the same time and yell âsoap! use soap!â and then they are too embarrassed not to. The education bureau did say teachers are required to provide extra time to students to properly wash their hands.
I only have a Vogmask, which I have worn when pollution has gotten bad (not just AQI, but also when morons decide burning plastic is a good idea). Itâs hard to teach English in a mask because students canât see my mouth moving, which means they donât know how to form the words themselves.
If my school were to require me to wear a mask, I would ask why no surface in any office has even been wiped with water, let alone bleach solution, and ask how many teachers had washed their hands with soap for 20 seconds that day. It would shut everyone up so fast.
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What is wrong with the original question?
"Should teachers be compelled to wear masks during class? "
No, I changed it to that. The verb voice wasnât right at first. No biggie, all better now 
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I just made a lesson plan for correct hand washing procedure and shared it with the entire school. At least they will be more aware about how to wash hands correctlyâŠI hope.
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But ⊠but ⊠lesson plans and school are for exams. Surely youâre not suggesting any of these bits of knowledge should be retained and used outside of an exam situation?
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Yep. Good. All teachers with flexible curriculum should be spending these coming weeks on teaching about disease spread. My ideas (feel free to steal):
I started with vocab âbleachâ, âwipeâ and âdisinfectâ and we discussed why they have to wipe their desks with bleach every morning and noon.
Then we talked about mass outbreaks of the past (black death and Spanish Influenza. Had 1/3 of the class stand up to show how many people died in those cases. I didnât want to see pics of smallpox, but that would be a good one to talk about tooâŠ) SARS is so mild in comparison (774 deaths), but these kids werenât even born yet when that happened.
Then I gave them a Greek lesson (epidemic and pandemic). Apparently my students actually pay attention, because a few asked me why so many English words come from Greek and Latin.
Then we talked about how to prevent disease spread. They came up with âwash your handsâ âwear a maskâ and âdonât be with sick peopleâ. We talked about whether a mask works and who a mask helps (hint: itâs the people who arenât sick who are near a mask-wearing sick person). We discussed hoarding and wasting resources (ie, masks and TP). I asked if getting your hands wet and shaking water all over everywhere was an effective way to wash oneâs hands. They know how to wash their hands correctly, they choose not to. I held a class hostage until they all properly sang âhappy birthdayâ to themselves while scrubbing with a proper amount of soap before lunch.
So far in every class, I have had a non-mask wearing student sneeze all over everyone. Perfect timing! I taught âbe a vampire" and made everyone practice âsneezingâ into their elbow. I also ran around âcoughingâ and âsneezingâ into my hands (and also closed fist) and touching things. Anything on student desks, door knobs, the lunch utensils sitting haphazardly in the back of the room. Then I âcoughedâ and âsneezedâ into my elbow and tried to touch things with the crook of my elbow. They got the point. I hope. I know people say you should sneeze into a tissue and throw that tissue away immediately, but your elbow is attached to your body (one hopes) and tissues and masks are not.
I got a bunch of eye rolls and a âyou should always wear a mask if youâre coughingâ from the government person who was sent to talk about staying healthy at the school meeting when I dared stand up and teach everyone about âbeing a vampireâ (coughing into your elbow). I only dared bring it up because the person next to me kept turning toward me and coughing all over my food during lunch today and it was lunch, soâŠno masks. WTF my point was what to do when you donât have a mask and a healthcare worker is telling everyone to ignore me and âwear a mask if youâre coughing or sneezingâ? This is a habit that Taiwanese people will never get.
Next class will be a video of petri dish hands (not washed, washed with water, washed with soap) starts @3:30 or so: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TajAxofnW8w
and a cloze wksh I made from this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBGsoimPXZg
Happy Covid-19 season! May the odds be ever in your favor?
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Iâve been telling people at work for years to wash hands and clean desks but they just smile and probably think Iâm wasting alcohol. Yet, theyâre always frantically mopping the floors. Iâve also tried to point out to them how they often get sick while Iâm rarely sick. I wash my hands before and after class. I clean my desk and tell the kids not to touch me or anything that belongs to me.
As the famous French expression goes, âyou can lead a horse to water but ya canât makeâm drinkâ.
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I believe it should be âShould teachers be compelled to wear a mask?â As written, it grammatically asks if one teacher should wear more than one mask. But everyone speaks like that anyone so no biggie.
I donât like it, but the message sent there is that the teacher doesnât care about the health of the students, logic and science aside.
Iâve been told that itâs a government regulation but I didnât believe it and wear one anyone. Iâm glad all the students are wearing masks. As it is, they canât resist putting their fingers up their nose, using sleeves as tissues, and touching everything. But at least masks prevent them from sneezing everywhere. Thankfully, my school cleans everything regularly.
Thank goodness for teachers, like you, on the ground, teaching practical skills/attitudes during a potential crisis. Iâve been in a somewhat similar situation and bought soap (for previously soapless) areas in our university department. Thankfully, others caught on and volunteered.
Having no hot water, on the other hand, is a hindrance. The remote school I volunteer at has ample soap, but same temperature water. Thankfully, they aggressively advocate hand-washing. Keep up the good work @nz!
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Wouldnât that mean that they all have to share the same mask?
That measure would certainly save money, and it would rid us of those long lines.
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It seems like kind of a grey area.
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Ok, I wonât fight this one like I did with âWhack thingsâ or âWack thingsâ sometime back. I was going to say Iâm not going to bother going through a style guide but I couldnât resist googling it and found:
https://markallenediting.com/2011/02/19/parts-of-sentences-sometimes-must-agree-to-disagree/
Itâs not in any style manuals. éœćŻä»„ă
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I like where you head is at! Good on you. I would also like to offer up some advice on the issue of health and the importance of hand washing.
Way back in the day, when I was in middle school our health teacher was instructing us on bacteria, viruses, pandemics, and the prevention of such. We all listened, we watched the films shown us, read the chapter passages, etc. But, nothing prepared us for the coup de grace that Mr. M had set up for us one morning!
Unbeknownst to us, he had sprinkled a light dusting of powder on all of our desks before we arrived for the day. It was so light and fine that none of us realized that he had punked us really well.
Mr. M. conducted our class as usual and at the half way point in our class he revealed with great fanfare that we were all infected with a new virus which we had âpicked upâ off our desks and transferred to our bodies. We were so silent you could hear a pin drop. Some of the smart asses in class (me) scoffed until he closed the blinds and turned off the lights and then lit up either a black light or an ultraviolent light. We all lit up like miserable Christmas trees!
We had the powder all over our hands, on our ears, our cheeks, our eyes, foreheads and some had clearly been surreptitiously been picking their noses which was at that point apparent for all to see!
This was a lesson that I learned that day and never forgot. You can be shown all the data, be provided with all the gruesome pictures of diseases and all the education that goes with it, but to be shown how easily disease can be transferred through this class demonstration is key.
So, I recommend that if you can get some of this âmagic powderâ, you can also do the experiment in your class and drive home the importance of washing hands and not touching your face, etc. This lesson will be a huge hit.
Here are a couple videos showing the experiment.
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Thatâs brilliant! I saw a preschool blog that suggested using sparkles to teach kids how to âseeâ germs, but revealing an almost invisible powder would have so much more of an impact.
Now to find a way to âinfectâ the classes without them seeingâŠ